Accountability in Music • Page 226

I wonder how many people eager to defend and/or forgive abusers are victims of abuse themselves. It's such a horrific experience that I can't imagine you could go through it and still be like that.

 

The presentation of Better Off’s statement further undermines any supposed contrition. The page is a timeline of the band’s indie/punk bonafides and how they started as something small and achieved all this great success. Then they spend about two paragraphs briefly addressing the assault before moving on to promoting their new album (while, as others have pointed out, continuing to refer to the assailant as “alleged” and a very close friend). They knew they needed to acknowledge the situation and chose to do so in such a manner designed to minimized their response.

 

I know you're going to walk away from this conversation thinking that people here are being unfair or have impossibly high standards or are cherry picking against a band that you like. But I hope that everyone in here, including multiple women, telling you that this way of thinking is harmful and that actual accountability is more than what Better Off has offered so far, is a bigger takeaway

 

I don't know a whole lot about the better off situation, but when you know someone as a friend and grow to trust them, you're just going to be more inclined to take their side in conflict-- they legitimately thought they were in the right and understood the consequences of surrendering their platform.

Obviously that's not ideal, but that's the way the vast majority of people think. And while it's valid to speculate the sincerity of their apology, I think since it's the first public anything this band has done in a while, it's acceptable enough, (albeit weird they're trying to regain their platform) and I think speculating malice or explicitly selfish intent is unfair because we all do selfish things.

So ultimately it should come down to impact on the victim, which I'm not at all educated about cause I literally never heard of this band until last week. The way it sounds to me the band went radio silent for the past few years so their impact on the victim seems inquantifiable.

So while I'm not defending the band (I definitely won't be listening to their new album if I can help it) unless I'm missing something, I think it's easy to see why this thread's disdain for these people seems extreme to some.

 

Why are you so determined to defend them if you are self-admittedly ignorant of the details and history of the situation?

 

the "disdain" is not extreme and if you feel that way you should post less and listen more

 

I swear it's like people don't actually want to discuss anything in good faith and instead just want to create strawmen to burn. This thread, this website, was extremely vocal in their disgust for that band. To the point where I ruined my relationship with their label over it and my displeasure with them defending and continuing to support that band.

No one having this conversation now, about Better Off, were not doing it about Moose Blood. You can't just make this stuff up when we're all right here and have been here for years. The only people defending Moose Blood were people like you, now, defending Better Off. Look which side of the equation you're on!

 

I was about to correct this & say "*apologist-apologist" and then realized that would make me an apoligist-apoligist apoligist--

Welp

 

I think you need to take a step back and realize that defending and supporting a system that ignores women when they are assaulted, and tells them it didn't happen, and that it doesn't matter, is a form of violence. That very structure and cycle is core to the problem.

 

I want to be educated & want y'all to know what my views are so you can correct them if need be. Because what you're all saying seems really weird and disproportionate to the situation imo.

For all intents and purposes they fell off the face of the earth to take time to cope and figure out what happened, and now there's this weird "fuck them" attitude that I'm trying to wrap my head around. Like somehow them doing nothing for 3 years is a bad thing, and then apologizing is somehow worse? Like please educate me if I'm missing something, but it's really confusing to me.

Really I just want to know what happened to the victim since and how what they did hurt her.

Idk y'all, I'm legitimately at a loss here and don't know what to say. I'll shut up & listen now.

 

But they didn't 'do nothing' for three years. They told a woman what happened to her didn't matter, they publicly told the world what happened to her didn't matter, and the showcased the worst part of this male-centric-defend-bro mentality in this scene. Those actions have ramifications. That happened.

Then, instead of any kind of accountability process, which would involve many, many, steps, they came back with "we're sorry yo here's our album." Not only does it show they clearly didn't learn anything (and looking at their social media, that's pretty clear), but it's the exact opposite of accountability. As I said before, what they're trying to do right now is the end of the process, not the start of it.

And when you participate in the worst of a system that tells a woman who was abused it didn't happen, publicly, using your platform, to the world, you need to do a whole lot more before you get that platform back again.

 

If you were actually listening to the situation you wouldn't be arguing that what we are saying is "really weird and disproportionate to the situation." Because what we are saying is that defending abusers is another way in which men in this scene continue to weaponize their power and silence the voices of victims. These are inherent power structures in place that perpetrate the exact situations we have seen time and time again; man abuses, friends defend abuser, fans defend abuser, the victim is shamed or pressured into silence, men get to continue abusing. Wherever you fall on that spectrum between abuser and apologist still makes you a cog in that machine.

When people come in here and try to tell me, a woman, who has seen abuse in the scene and experienced it first hand (though in a much more mild way than what some of these women have faced and I would never try to put my situation up against theirs), - that my experience or the experience of a victim is not enough for you to stop listening, that an apology is enough for forgiveness - I find it painful and invalidating. You don't get to make that determination. Ultimately the voice of the victim is the most important one, and oftentimes fans are so interested in parsing an apology or defending their faves despite all costs that they forget the most important voice of all, and these fans often create another abusive situation in which the victim now has to suffer additional abuse from the backlash.

 

They also literally said they didn't care what happened to them as a result of their actions at the time. Pretty wild to say that and then turn around and ask for a do-over.

 

Ok but can you see how it might seem disingenuous and self-serving to apologize only now as they are releasing an album and want to tour again? They released that first single only months ago and when people brought the allegations back up they were happy enough to let their pals continue to call Kayla a liar. Saying "Ok we're sorry now and so we're back" is not accountability

 

Y'all are absolutely right. I'm sorry if I came off as defensive of the band. I'm just a very sensitive person who takes this shit to heart more than I should and was overly willing to believe they came out of a place of sincerity, and I guess that's something I have to work on. I'll take you all at your words. Thanks!

 

Food for thought, and this is coming from personal experience:

If you asked me what was more damaging or worse, what my abuser did to me or the way our mutual friends to this day defend him and are ride-or-die-apologists for him, I could not answer that question.

Apologism is unspeakably cruel, especially on this public of a platform.

Edit: To clarify, I'm speaking of what Better Off did, not Chorus FM forums. It's cruel here too but not nearly as public.

 

To be clear, I wasn’t defending Luke’s defense of David, at the time of the situation I was very disappointed with how the band handled everything and it was only when Luke admitted he made a mistake in siding with him that I was willing to support the band again. I understand that it’s a hard call to make and I don’t know the full story, just the way I see it I’m a little more understanding in a case like this. I understand seeing things differently and not wanting to support the band, this is just my take. As far as being biased since I like the band, Capsize was another band I was a big fan of, even more so than Better Off, and I cut off any support for them once I found out what members of that band did. I just feel like the Better Off situation is a bit more of a gray area. I understand that not everyone sees it the same way and I was more defensive than I should have been earlier, I’m just trying to explain as clearly as I can how I feel on it.

I guess more than anything it’s just a matter of whether or not you feel Luke is being sincere about regretting how he responded

 

The amount of people in this thread, women and victims of abuse included, who have tried to explain how your view is problematic and this is still your takeaway. Mind boggling.

 

Go back and read the posts people made to you. His 'sincerity' isn't the issue.

 

Am I a ghost

 

Just got a Bandsintown email for a Better Off show in May!

 

Your post was clear, concise and meaningful. So he will of course ignore it as he has done to reason within the rest of this thread.

 

Are we still taking about Better Off?

Less than a year ago the survivor was publicly saying that Luke had not reached out to apologize for what he put her through and mentioned worse things he’d done behind the scenes

 

But he MEANS it now so it's fine and his word should absolutely be taken as sincere at face value because of secret reasons